Norm Clarke

Norm Clarke (born 1942 in Terry, Montana) is an American gossip columnist in Las Vegas, Nevada. He wrote the column "Vegas Confidential" for the Las Vegas Review-Journal from 1999 to 2016. He currently publishes the website "Norm Clarke's Vegas Diary” (norm.vegas). His blog covers celebrities and near-celebrities and their doings in the bright lights of "Sin City."

Not to be confused with Norm Clark.

Early life

Clarke grew up in eastern Montana, and got his first break in the newspaper business covering sports for the Terry Tribune. He moved on to newspaper jobs in Miles City, Helena and Billings. In 1973 he went to work for the Associated Press in Cincinnati, Ohio. While there, he covered the Beverly Hills Supper Club fire in neighboring Southgate, Kentucky, where 165 people perished. His work in covering the collapse of a 1978 nuclear power plant cooling tower in West Virginia, in which 66 construction workers died, earned Clarke and his colleagues a Pulitzer Prize nomination. He later transferred to San Diego, California and then Los Angeles, where he coordinated AP's coverage of the 1984 Summer Olympics.

Right after the Olympics, Clarke went to the Denver Rocky Mountain News to work as a sports writer, eventually covering the expansion Colorado Rockies. In 1996, he switched to writing a "man about town" column that would become the prototype for his Vegas column. Shortly after moving to Denver, Clarke won $50,000 in the state lottery, using the proceeds to buy a house in Denver and in Las Vegas.

Writing career

In 1999, Clarke joined the Las Vegas Review-Journal as the man-about-town columnist.

Clarke has written four books to date.

  • Tracing Terry Trails, a collection of historical happenings in Prairie County, Montana. Published in 1982 for the Terry, Montana centennial celebration. A second reprint is scheduled in 2020.
  • Vegas Confidential: Norm Clarke! Sin City's Ace Insider 1,000 Naked Truths, published by Stephens Press (ISBN 1-932173-26-9). The book is a compilation of material from old columns, plus a great deal of new material. In the book, Clarke lists (among other things) the ten worst tippers in Las Vegas.
  • Norm Clarke's Vegas Confidential: Sinsational Celebrity Tales, also published by Stephens Press (ISBN 1-932173-77-3). In the book, Clarke offers remembrances of celebrities who live in, or visit Las Vegas

He currently publishes the website "Norm Clarke's Vegas Diary” (norm.vegas) which covers Las Vegas news, celebrity sightings, Vegas history, and human interest stories.

Personal

Clarke's trademark eyepatch came about as a result of a childhood injury, which left him blind in his right eye.

In 2012, Clarke married Cara Roberts, always referred to in his writings as the "Leggy Blonde."

References
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